If There Is No Crime
by Uozumi
Summary: Spock notices McCoy has been acting oddly disengaging for the past eight days. Kirk sheds some light on this.


**Fandom** _Star Trek AOS_  
**Character(s)/Pairing(s)** Kirk, McCoy, Spock; take any potential pairings as you will  
**Genre** Friendship/General  
**Rating** PG  
**Word Count** 1216  
**Disclaimer** Star Trek c. Paramount, CBS, Roddenberry  
**Summary** Spock notices McCoy has been acting oddly disengaging for the past eight days. Kirk sheds some light on this.  
**Warning(s)** None  
**Notes** Someone over at the kirkspock community on LJ was asking for fic in which McCoy's comments towards Spock leads to a reprimand by Kirk or some other consequences. This isn't the type of fic they were looking for, but that discussion is what inspired this fic. Kind of a McCoy's been reprimanded and Spock didn't know fic. This fic tried to kick my butt.

_**If There Is No Crime**_

They had been existing in this alien jail cell for hours. Taking in an almost suffocating breath in the humid heat, Spock had a briefly illogical thought that he was swallowing the silence. Spock tried to reason that the doctor's silence was due to the heat. He tried to reason that it was a way to conserve energy for the breakout they were going to perform once Spock figured out a weakness to the metal bars. Yet, this doctor-imposed silence was in its eighth day. It was not that the doctor said nothing to Spock, but it never progressed beyond the professional. It never touched upon something more than "Lie down on the biobed" or "get some rest" or some observation the doctor was making about a given situation in which his input was required. The doctor had not turned this silence onto anyone else. Spock heard him swapping jokes with Scott over lunch on more than one occasion, comfort Chapel when her fiancé was found dead in his apartment by means of a wayward experiment, and tease at Kirk about coming back with some galactic sexually transmitted disease just before their shore party embarked for the transporter earlier.

Spock opened his mouth and then wet his lips with his tongue instead of vocalizing. Perhaps this was a new tactic from the doctor. Spock tried to bend the bars again. Spock could rationalize the silence if the doctor's mood fit the possibilities. However, there was no lingering mischievousness; there was no lingering humor in whatever fleeting clinical touches Spock had with the doctor. The doctor had never been one to touch him outside of necessity. If anything, the man seemed to understand the mechanics of touch telepathy enough not to subject Spock to his emotional state at every turn like Kirk would.

"Take a rest, Spock," McCoy got up from the bench chiseled out of the rock face at the back of the cell.

Spock waited until he could feel the cooler body near him. "I do not require rest."

McCoy leaned on the bars. "You've been testing the same bars for a long time now. Either you're thinking too hard or you're tired."

Spock's eyes averted to McCoy's profile. "Vulcans can go for weeks without rest if the need arises." Spock knew the doctor knew this. Perhaps the silence was as stifling on both sides. After a moment, Spock added, his voice not belying the deliberate intention of his statement, "One cannot think 'hard' since thought is intangible without shape or density."

McCoy's eye twitched. He opened his mouth and shut it. After a long moment, he spoke, "Of course not." McCoy moved a step back and then turned to face the rest of the jail, his hands gripping onto the bars.

Spock waited but the doctor said no more. "Doctor…if you are trying to, I believe the phrase is, 'spare my feelings,' you will find there are none to spare." He had wanted to state that for five days now, but there were always others around. It did not seem logical to discuss this matter in front of an audience. His fingers ran along the bars, touching the weld marks, finding them just as sturdy as they were the last time he checked. He continued with the same deliberate nature, "You have been repressed as of late."

"'Re – Repressed?'" Predictably, the doctor found fluster with all the connotations surrounding the word and Spock felt his own shoulders relax just slightly as the doctor's voice gathered intensity. "I am not repressed!"

"You are in some respects," Spock answered, "but if it is by choice, then I cannot understand." However, if it were by order, everything would make sense. Spock thought he could feel one of the bars sitting loosely. He began to toy with the bar to see if he could not wedge it free.

McCoy was silent for a long time. Finally, he asked, "Are you saying you're worried?"

Spock could hear the grin threatening to take over the doctor's features. "I am not. I have noticed a drastic shift in behavior of a necessary crewmember, which defies explanation currently." The bar in Spock's hands wiggled, but still remained firmly attached to the wall so far. "The last time such a dramatic shift was noted, the captain had split himself into two entities."

"I can assure you," McCoy drawled, "I'm one whole person." He walked over to Spock, noticing that the Vulcan had discovered a weakness to their holdings. "And I haven't changed that much." McCoy reached down to grab onto another part of the bar. Even if Spock was stronger than a human, that did not mean he was the be all and end all of physical strength. Perhaps both of them could move the bar free.

Spock set the doctor's point aside and with some instruction, the two began to pull at the bar, wiggling it a little with each tug. The bar stubbornly stayed where it belonged. After much trying, the pair lapsed back into silence. Time passed and Kirk launched an elaborate scheme, which somehow ended in them back on the Enterprise ready to decontaminate and rejoin the crew.

As they three stepped off the transport platform, McCoy answered a question pose by Kirk before beam up. "Well, you try spending days in a cell with a breathing compu –" with a warning look from Kirk, the doctor's eyes narrowed and then he took a breath. "Look, I'll tell you later or something. I've got to get to decon and then I've got a lot to do in Sickbay."

Spock watched the retreating form of the doctor before his eyes turned to Kirk, studying the man a little more openly than he normally might choose.

"What is it, Spock?" Kirk started walking towards the decontamination room. Spock and McCoy looked worse for wear than Kirk, who had managed to escape confinement in the jail during their stay on the planet.

"Captain, do you find the doctor's behavior," Spock tried to find the right words, "unlike he conducted himself prior to ten days ago?"

"So you noticed." Kirk nodded. "Don't worry, Spock, I took care of it. I got some complaints on your behalf, and I have to agree, Bones can get overexcited and say things that I really shouldn't excuse as easy as I have."

Spock's eyes found Kirk's and then he looked down the hallway at their approaching destination. McCoy was nowhere in sight, probably working through the decontamination program as fast as possible without incurring potential consequences from too speedy a decon. "Vulcans cannot become 'worried,'" Spock corrected, even if he knew Kirk would call bullshit. "I simply wish to convey that if I had a problem with the doctor, I would have taken care of it on my own." He stopped outside one of the doors to a decon unit stored in the room. He held Kirks' gaze a moment longer and then inclined his head slightly. "I shall perform decontamination and then speak with the doctor. Your intentions are understandable, but I do not wish to cause compromise when there is no problem to require such measures."

Spock entered the decon chamber when its door opened to him. Once the door was sealed, the program commenced.

**The End**


End file.
